The Mental State of a Suicide Bomber or Shooter

“When an eighteen- years-old Palestinian girl is induced to blow herself up, and in the process kills a seventeen-years-old Israeli girl, the future itself is dying. The future of Palestinian people and Israelis people.” These are the words of a President, a leader of a super power country; who has already lost hope in the future of these two countries. In the beginning he was supporting Israel, and now he is asking them to back off. Imagine if a president of a super power is loosing hope how come the rest of the world remains optimistic.

Recently, there is a rise in suicide bombings among Palestinian people specially now among young girls. I remembered two days ago I was watching a program about an eighteen-year-old girl who blew herself up. That girl does not fill the typical terrorist profile; She was an intelligent and smart honor student.

The question arises with the act of suicide bombing: What leads a person to end this live as well as others. Life is a very precious gift from God. We only have one lifetime, although we as a Muslim believe on the life after death, but it would be a different life, so the question again arises what is in those people’s minds? For this we have to live their lives. We cannot understand the philosophy and their motives. West may have condemned this a lot, of-coarse this is a horrifying act of violence but did anybody think about his or her state of mind. Those are not mentally ill people. We are not talking about people who are severely depressed or had a history of depression; we are talking about normal people like you and me, so why they wanted to end their lives. What drives them to this point where they have lost the will to live and ready to take others lives?

In my opinion, they just not want to kill other people but also to establish a statement. Their act shows their frustrations and anger towards their surroundings and aggressors. It happens in sheer sense of deprivation. It is a vendetta of vengeance as well. Their reaction is similar to stepping on an anthill. We kill lots of them but one or two will crawl up and bite us and then get squished.

We can find many reasons to blame them. But we have to see all the facts here. They wanted to prove their believes, their cause through the intensity of the matter. They believe to live with self-respect, dignity and freedom. I think it was one of our founding fathers, George Washington, who said, “Give me Liberty or give me death.”

Palestinians wait for hours, sometimes in pouring rain, for permission to travel to jobs, schools, and hospitals and to just meet relatives. Even, President Bush is also realizing the condition of Palestinian people who are facing daily humiliation on the check- points. Palestinians feel threatened and anger as their lands are taken away from them. They out-loudly said that we are not against Israelis; we want our state, our own future. Palestinian people are trapped in their homes by shelling and gunfire; they are running short of food, water and soothing their fearful children. They are fighting this war for thirty years now. This generation that is now ready to end their lives grows up in a war zone.

Imagine about those people who awake the sound of truckémounted loudspeakers blaring instructions in Arabic for all boys and men between the ages of 14 and 40 to come out side. Parents are forced to send their sons otherwise soldiers will break in and search the house. Imagine the state of their minds when they are forced to come out of their houses in the middle of the night and also when they are rounded up by Israelis troops to size fugitives wanted for attacks against Israelis. Palestinian thinks that struggle against Israel are a legitimate struggle against foreign occupation.

Israelis are defending themselves through grinding military campaign in Jenin for past thirteen days. Israelis defend themselves through tanks, guns, apache helicopters and F-16 fighter planes. That is by the way provided through our tax money. What is the Palestinian using? They only have young, hurt-full and emotional bodies; they only have small hands throwing rocks. That’s their only weapon; their blood their flash is the only weapon they can use against Israel. The Israelis, shocked and aroused by the ghastly wave of suicide bombings, say they have no choice but to clamp down ever harder on Arab cities and towns where the bombers are trained, equipped and dispatched.

On the other hand it is also a fact that suicide or killing more people is not going to solve anything. Peace can never be established through more killings. As president urged Israel to stop building Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories, to ease border closing. If and when Israel steps back, responsible Palestinian leaders must step forward and show the world that they are truly on the side of peace.

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